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“Ohhhhhh,” Cora whispered into Signy’s lips. “Shit.” She understood. “All right, uh—now what?”
“I need a—an exit—”
A passerby cussed as she bumped lightly into them. She wore a business satchel, and a scarf printed with the continents of Earth. “Will you get a fucking room?” she said. “Some of us have places to be.”
“You know what?” Cora said smartly to the stranger. “That’s a great idea.” She took Signy’s hand as if hit with inspiration. “Come on, babe.”
It was Signy’s turn to not argue. She followed Cora straight through the crowd and into a public bathroom. As the door shut behind them, Signy threw one quick glimpse toward the cop who had looked her way.
Either embarrassed or uninterested, they were now looking elsewhere.
“Sorry,” Cora said as she locked the door to the single-person facility. “Not exactly the classiest cover, but—”
“No, it’s good,” Signy said. She stretched her neck back and took a deep breath.
“I didn’t know they’d be doing this, I’m so sorry—”
“How is this your fault?”
“I mean, I should’ve thought of—”
“Thought of what? Whether there might be a random police check at the ferry station?”
“Yeah, actually!” Cora said, visibly annoyed with herself. “I gotta think of these things, with you! The last thing I want is to get you in trouble.”
Signy squinted at her. “It’s your medicine. I just put you at risk.” It hadn’t seemed practical for Cora to make a special trip to the shop when they were already going to meet elsewhere, but perhaps shop pickups only, for all customers, was a better idea for the time being.
“Well, then, all the more reason I gotta be smarter about scoping new places out.” Cora pursed her lips, then pulled her phone out of her pocket. “Um—lemme just pull up a map. If we can’t get to the grill, there’s got to be a million other places we can—”
Signy looked at the paper flowers still clutched in her right hand. Peachy pink and white. Little pops of yellow. “Cora?” Signy reached out and lay her fingers over the top edge of Cora’s phone. “You don’t have to go to all this fuss.”
“What fuss?” Cora said. “It’s not hard to find a restaurant.”
“No, I mean—” Signy shut her eyes. She gathered both thoughts and courage. “We don’t always need to do something new. I—I know that you like to go out on the town, and please don’t get me wrong, I enjoy our time together so much, but we don’t have to—what I’m saying is . . . sometimes, I like staying put. And it’d be nice to stay put with you.” She stopped herself there, hoping that hadn’t sounded as dull to Cora as it had to herself.
Cora stared at Signy. “I . . .” She started to run her hand back through her hair, then stopped as she remembered she was still wearing gloves. She blinked. She laughed. “I don’t care at all about—what did you just say? Going out on the town?”
Now Signy stared. “What?”
“I mean, sure, I like to do stuff sometimes, but . . . not this often. I don’t usually leave Flytown much. I’ve never been to this raft before.”
“But you . . .” Signy felt as though her brain were scanning channels and picking up nothing but static. “You know all these places. All these things to do.”
Cora continued to laugh, shaking her head. “I’ve been asking my friends! Looking stuff up! Every time I come back down from a run, I spend like a whole night online crawling through websites about—fuck, you know what, here, look.” She held out her phone, flicked through her files, and selected a document.
Stuff to do with Signy
•Archival movies at the Cravat, raft 16
•Ceramics show April 21 on raft 9 (would she like this? I dunno)
•The Blue Moon, raft 13—Lydia says good small plates
•The Crumbs playing at Jungle Jungle on May 3
•Massage and steam bath place on raft 13 (kind of pricey, maybe for a birthday or something?) (ASK HER WHEN HER BIRTHDAY IS)
•Monthly BBQ pop-up at South Side Brewery
